Pascal Vahirua

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pascal Vahirua 2014

Pascal Vahirua (born March 9, 1966 in Papeete in Tahiti / French Polynesia ) is a former French football player . His cousin Marama , who is 14 years his junior , also plays in the highest league in France.

The club career

The winger came to France from Tahiti at the age of 16 and was accepted into the youth boarding school of AJ Auxerre . The coach there, Guy Roux , slowly introduced him to their first division eleven, who had secure support in defense with national goalkeeper Bats and the young Boli and selected dangerous attackers with Szarmach , Ferreri and Garande ; In addition to Pascal Vahirua, another young man named Éric Cantona also claimed a regular place on the offensive. First, Vahirua won the Coupe Gambardella , the national junior championship, with the AJA in 1985 . In the 1985/86 season he was then used for the first time in a league game, and in the following year he was just like Cantona in the starting eleven.

From 1986 to 1994, the fast left-footed player was only rarely absent in the initial line-up of his team, he also scored a number of hits every season as a winger, but was increasingly the preparer for the storm peaks; In 1990 he also became a national player. He fit in well with this “provincial club”, which always had to get by on a relatively modest budget, but has always landed in a single-digit position in the table this decade due to its excellent youth work and the “good knack for inexpensive talent”. However , it was not enough for a championship title : two third (1991, 1994) and three fourth places (1987, 1992, 1995) meant the maximum for Pascal Vahirua as well. After all, he was represented with Auxerre in five of these years in the UEFA Cup and reached the semi-finals in April 1993, in which they then lost to Borussia Dortmund on penalties. In 1994 Vahirua finally won another title: that year the AJ Auxerre won the French Cup .

In the season following the cup win, Vahirua was used in just over half of his team's matches. Therefore, he moved in 1995 from Bourgogne to Normandy to the first division relegated SM Caen ; Although the team managed to get back up immediately - but Vahirua could not prevent his team from playing in the football club for only one year and remaining second-rate in the two following years. From 1999 he played in Greece for Atromitos , but returned to France in 2001, where he played for a year at the lower-class Tours FC and then until 2005 at the amateur club Stade Auxerrois . Back at home in Auxerre , Pascal Vahirua once again benefited from his closeness to the French coaching legend Guy Roux , from whom he was able to learn many a trick, and completed training as a coach.

Since the beginning of 2014 he has been living in Tahiti again, where he coached the second men's and U-15 teams of AS Tefana in 2015 .

Stations

  • AS Mateiea and Vataka (Tahiti; as a youth)
  • AJ Auxerre (1982-1995)
  • SM Caen (1995–1999, including 3 years in D2)
  • Atromitos (Greece, 1999-2001)
  • Tours FC (2001/02)
  • Stade Auxerrois (2002-2005)

The national player

Between January 1990 and March 1994 Pascal Vahirua played 22 international matches for the Equipe Tricolore , but scored only one goal there. He was the first player of Polynesian origin who was allowed to wear the blue national jersey. In his second and third international matches he contributed to the victories over the GDR (3-0) and the Federal Republic (2-1). National coach Michel Platini was very fond of the striker and also took him to the European Football Championship in 1992 , where he was only called up for one half in the preliminary round matches against hosts Sweden and the Danish “vacationers” . Even under Platini's successor Gérard Houllier , the dark-skinned player belonged to the national team tribe; with the beginning of the Jacquet era , Vahirua's time with the Bleus ended .

Palmarès

  • French cup winner : 1994
  • a total of 30 European Cup games, 7 goals
  • 313 appearances and 53 goals in Division 1 (288/52 for Auxerre, 25/1 for Caen)
  • 22 international matches, 1 goal; European Championship participant 1992 (2 missions)
  • French junior champion ( Coupe Gambardella ): 1985

Notes and evidence

  1. ↑ according to the article " Pascal Vahirua entre deux eaux " from July 18, 2015 at francefootball.fr
personal data
SURNAME Vahirua, Pascal
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French soccer player
DATE OF BIRTH March 9, 1966
PLACE OF BIRTH Papeete , Tahiti , French Polynesia